Monday, February 2, 2009

Not the change we were looking for...

Buried deep inside the massive spending orgy that Democrats jammed through the House this week lie five words that could drastically undo two decades of welfare reforms.

The very heart of the widely applauded Welfare Reform Act of 1996 is a cap on the amount of federal cash that can be sent to states each year for welfare payments.

But, thanks to the simple phrase slipped into the legislation, the new "stimulus" bill abolishes the limits on the amount of federal money for the so-called Emergency Fund, which ships welfare cash to states.

"Out of any money in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise appropriated, there are appropriated such sums as are necessary for payment to the Emergency Fund," Democrats wrote in Section 2101 on Page 354 of the $819 billion bill. In other words, the only limit on welfare payments would be the Treasury itself.

49 comments:

Yawn...Here we go again... it's that tired old argument...as to which political party is responsible for putting us inthe poor house.

They both are and if we had a viable third party they'd be responsible too!fa

At least the Democrats get the money first before they spend it.

The Republicans spend the money first then mortgage our country to the Chinese (or whoever else buys our debt)!

Hey folks run your brains fast forward for a moment.

If you don't pay out some moneybeforehand to help the TRULY NEEDY (which might be some of us tomorrow morning considering this economy) you'll be paying double later when these people eventually hit the streets.

It's a big country with even bigger problems and returning to the simplistic notion of "less government" is a child's fairy tale dream.

Small government worked well in the 18th and early 19th centuries when the population of our nation wasequally as small.

The efficient management of ourlarge government is what's currently required to get the jobdone properly.

Sorry...we can't shrink back to our pre-existing 1770s size(unless we kill off most of our people).

Now let's all get real and cut out the belly-aching and blaming.

It's time to get off the soap box and get with the program. Give "change" (or whatever?) a chance.

Obama's government gets two years from me. Then comes report card time. If the grades are good then that's great. If they're notthen Prez Barack and his crew have screwed up!

We'll survive and then we can choose to elect someone else as our commander in chief.

What ever happened to FAITH...the kind our forefathers had during a far worse period in our country's history...WHEN WE HAD NO UNITED STATES OF AMERICA YET...and patriots (not the armchair variety) were shedding their blood for its birth!!!

Rick Wingnut, check out: "Andrew Cuomo and Fannie and Freddie. How the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history gave birth to the mortgage crisis." by Wayne Barrett, Village Voice, August 5, 2008.

That's right. You read it correctly: GAVE BIRTH TO THE MORTGAGE CRISIS

Clinton started this when he signed into law that banks are required to give home loans to minorities.--------------------------Yep Bildo ordered it at gunpoint to the banks.It was called his "Chicken in Every Pot" Policy.

Jimmy Carter started it Ronald Reagan stomped it out the firt week in office in the 80's

Reagan warned it would no doubt bankrupt the country.Clinton revived it.

Better NYC Said:Clinton started this when he signed into law that banks are required to give home loans to minorities, even if they don't qualify. This is where the housing crisis started.

From Buisiness Week:Add President Clinton to the long list of people who deserve a share of the blame for the housing bubble and bust. A recently re-exposed document shows that his administration went to ridiculous lengths to increase the national homeownership rate. It promoted paper-thin downpayments and pushed for ways to get lenders to give mortgage loans to first-time buyers with shaky financing and incomes. It’s clear now that the erosion of lending standards pushed prices up by increasing demand, and later led to waves of defaults by people who never should have bought a home in the first place.

I dont see anything about Minorities stated or implied.Check your facts before playing the blame the minorities game.

georgieporgie: Rick Wingnut, check out: "Andrew Cuomo and Fannie and Freddie. How the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history gave birth to the mortgage crisis." by Wayne Barrett, Village Voice, August 5, 2008.

See, that's the trouble with getting all your opinions from one source. Andrew Cuomo may be PART of the problem, but this issue is complex enough that smart people are still discussing it so I'm pretty sure that your friend Wayne doesn't have it all figured out. Like... no mention of ARMs and interest-only mortgages and the ravenous mortgage lenders and real estate agents? They play no part? And the deregulation that allowed the large investment banks to dirty their already grubby hands with "mortgage-backed securities"? And the independent ratings agencies - independent even from the SEC - who gave these time bombs AAA ratings?

It's okay, george. I know it's more comforting to live in a simple imaginary world than in the chaos of reality.www.nra.org.

Wow.Double wow.There may be a fine line between genius and insanity, but you're just plain ignernt. How 'bout all them whiteys in California who were "first-time buyers with shaky financing and incomes"?

Actually you're just not worth arguing with. I can smell your deified Ayn Rand in the A=A formulation. You call yourself an atheist, but you worship a bad novelist and a thinker from more than two millenia ago. Just consult any mathematician alive today and I'm sure they can give you the lowdown on chaos.

Even Leftie Paul Krugman... yawn... THE villain IS Andrew Cuomo.

There you go again with your Cuomo fetish... talk about people thinking with their spleen instead of their brain! For an atheist you are an extremely dogmatic character, george.

The bankers and brokers just went along for the ride in the Liberal Zeitgeist.

Dogmatic to the point that you invent crazy fantasies just to force this piece of the puzzle to fit your invented reality. The bankers and brokers "just went along for the ride," you say. In your mind they share no culpability for the current meltdown. They were not motivated by greed to do some very dishonest things. Maybe they're even the good guys.

Change is what we have after Bush. Lint is what we'll have after Obama. I can't believe we had a surplus after Clinton.

Spending your way out of recession is like effing for virginity.

Going into my Howard Stern rant...

Enough of pork and entitlements for people who can work!!! Enough of this bailout crap for bank executives!! Didn't they already get a gazillion billion?!!?? And aren't they busy buying jets and throwing vacation junkets in Vegas?!!? Who's fixing the balance sheets!!!

The bill is 900 billion and growing.. give me some of it so I can buy 90k carpet!!!!!!

Anonymous, you hit the nail on the head. I read the financial news every day. I'm more and more pissed as the days go on. Can you believe those f*#ks on Wall Street gave themselves 18 billion dollars in bonuses? Some of them talk like it's an entitlement. "If you don't pay bonuses, you'll lose the best and the brightest." Can you believe that sh*#? I'd like to know exactly WHERE they'll be going if they don't get their bonus money. They should be ashamed of themselves. Their salaries alone are more than what most of us make. They don't deserve any bonus. They were paid vulgar money for bad decisions and risky investments and now we all have to pay. As it turns out these jokers weren't "masters of the universe" after all.

Is it possible - just possible - that the "rescue" tax dollars slated for STDs, abortions, and condoms, pushed by the Democrats and defended by the "staunch practicing Catholic" Pelosi, are really provided in the bill because Pelosi and her lackeys plan to give taxpayers one gigantic porking?

To Anon # 1:"What ever happened to FAITH...the kind our forefathers had during a far worse period in our country's history..."

Government is NOT a religion. Only morons would put their FAITH in any government. Perhaps you meant CONFIDENCE. But, even with that, why should we, who pay ALL THE BILLS for all branches and levels of government, drop our vigilance for even a moment? Look at this Madoff fellow. Where was the SEC for years and years when suspicions of Madoff were repeatedly sent in?

It was your beloved government that forced banks to give mortgages to anyone brazen enough to demand one - even without a job, credit-worthy record (and to contribute my assessment of whom to blame, let's say Schumer, Blowhard Barney Frank, and Dodd who was blessed by two mortgages with oh, so favorable rates - but, NOT because he was a member of the Senate Banking Committee, oh, NO, NEVER for a bad reason)).

Confidence? Faith? Not on a bet!

Beyond these comments, it's more impressive if you don't comment like a bumper-sticker writer.

georgethefetishist, it's not worth telling if you're not even listening.

Do I have to hold your pudgy little hand through all this? Please do us all a favor and actually read - READ - through what has been typed before. You'll find that I've suggested countless times that it's not so simple as to be one man's fault.

And if you really want to get down and dirty, maybe we should trace this all the way back to the beginnings of FHA mortgage insurance and 30-year self-amortizing mortgages that allow all of us to buy houses we can't afford. Before that, people pretty much had to have the cash in hand.

Nods to Italian Girl. They were masters of lining their own friggin pockets and they still are!! With our tax/tarp crapola money.

I'm pretty sure they spent all of the tax dollars and are in the process of printing money out of thin air.

I can't wait to buy a loaf of bread with a thousand dollar note. Future, please hurry so I can take picture of that transaction and upload it to Flickr.

Srsly, these people should be fired and thrown out of the country! They prolly have a home in the carribeans anyways.

We are living in some bizzaro world where failure brings promotion!!! Same sh*t with our schools.

Get some new blood in there.. be it man or monkey! People who have the ability to think logically and plan for the future. People who do not skirt tax laws like Geithner and Dashel. Can you believe the crappy excuses they gave.. OMG.

" 'Most people recognize that housing itself is the root of the current economic downturn', said Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader.'We should fix this problem before we fix anything else.' Democratic lawmakers do not disagree..."

"...soaring default rates on subprime mortgages [Note Wingnut, follow the bouncing ball now, NOT conventional mortgages] were at the heart of the credit crisis that began in August 2007, which crippled Wall Street and the nation's banks".

And so you see, Oh Supercilious One, the donkey was Cuomo fils. Pin the tail on him.

And so you will apparently never see, Oh Dense One. Look, with your needlebrain skipping along the same worn groove, you're never going to hear the whole song.

I REPEAT, understanding full well the difference between a conventional and a subprime mortgage, that simply *enacting* legislation that can be *abused* in the form of subprimes is not enough. I have quite clearly enumerated several other factors so many times now that I no longer sympathize with your failure to apprehend.

I give up on you, georgie, like so many teachers before me. You are a lost cause.

And babelfishing something into French, on your part, somehow makes you smarter and Rand a more compelling writer?Nope.

Wingnut, would you kindly do the readership a favour? Would you please fart in a paper bag, stick your schnozz in it, and rhapsodize on its aesthetics?

Classy. And I will do nothing of the sort.My purpose here is simply to counter your absolutist nonsense with my own. And maybe introduce another point of view, which you may consistently choose to ignore. It's a free country, again.

Nice try, Wingnut. Not even close; certainly no cigar.Ding-ding-ding.The winnah? George the Atheist!

Yes, the ding-dong weiner is georgethefetishist, as he has clearly demonstrated a superior grasp of the A=A simplicity theory of global economic affairs. We all are now disciples, and take it as an article of faith that Cuomo predicated Madoff's ponzi collapse.

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